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Friday, February 3, 2012

The New Year is already more than a month old, and we hope that it started out well for all our clients, colleagues and associates. For SCIREQ, 2012 promises to become an exciting year during which we expect to roll out a number of interesting innovations to make your experiments more accurate, efficient and traceable.

Multi-subject flexiVent

One of our upcoming new products that has already received a lot of attention is the multi-subject extension for the flexiVent, a prototype of which was shown at last year’s ATS meeting in Denver [1]. This extension combines the efficiency of easily and simultaneously measuring respiratory mechanics in four parallel subjects with the highly detailed input impedance and Constant Phase Model measurements that make the flexiVent so unique. We expect to launch an initial version supporting mice at this year’s ATS meeting, with versions for rats and guinea pigs to follow by the end of the year. A call for beta testers for this device will follow soon on this blog.

Multi-subject extension for the flexiVent.

ZTR: OSCILLATION MECHANICS GOES CONSCIOUS

Our team of scientists and engineers continues to work towards a mature, easy to use solution for measuring transfer impedance (Ztr) in conscious subjects. Following up on our last year’s poster [2], we will present more data on this topic at this year’s ATS meeting. It is yet a bit too early to predict when this technique will become commercially available, but we will of course keep you posted about further developments.

TRANSLATIONAL RESEARCH

Translational research has become one of the scientific buzz words of the decade. At SCIREQ, we are doing what we can to offer scientists tools that permit relating measurements obtained in the lab to those obtained at the bedside. A couple of years ago, we introduced an extension to the flexiVent permitting measurements of FEV0.1 in mice. A version of this extension for larger subjects is expected later this year. There are a number of important differences between these measurements and human spirometry [3], but this technique nonetheless offers at least a first degree of continuity as you compare preclinical and clinical data.

Our engagement in translational research won’t stop there, though. Ultimately, we are working towards a set of techniques that can be applied virtually identically in laboratory animals and humans to permit a much closer correlation between results from the lab and the clinic. We expect to publish more on this topic in the course of the next few months.

FLEXIWARE 7 CONTINUES TO EVOLVE

With the introduction of the new flexiVent FX system in 2010, we also released our new flexiWare 7 software. As many of you know, this was not only an upgrade but a generation shift, and our software architecture is now more advanced, modern, efficient and expandable than ever before. As with any major transition, it took us and our distributors a few months to learn how to most efficiently present, configure and support this software to make sure it meets all your experimentation needs. This transition is now complete, and the new architecture and features translate into more efficient experimentation and data analysis for many labs. We’d love to give you a demo!

PRESSURE CONTROLLED VENTILATION

Our most recent flexiWare release, version 7.2, includes Pressure Controlled Ventilation (PCV) as a new ventilator mode. This feature is currently in beta test status and requires a special license key. If you are interested in using PCV, please contact our Technical Support team. Further ventilator modes are in preparation – details to follow...